Ajith Samaranayake:
A tribute
This tribute is written by Dr. Lester James Peries in remembrance of
the 53rd birthday of late journalist Ajith Samaranayake which falls
today. Ajith died on November 22, 2006.
With much spluttering of engine and tooting of horn the three
wheelers would sweep into No. 24 (formerly Dickman's Road) like the
famed 'Chariots of Fire'. Over the years this heralded the arrival of
our brilliant young friend to our home in Colombo 5.
Unlike many Sri Lankans who would drop in with no agenda to darken
the early morning sunlit hours with idle prattle, Ajith would phone and
say, 'I'll be there in half an hour 'Ok'?
Of course it was always ok for me for I always knew our young friend
would light up the darkening skies of our troubled days. - No one has
left us quite so suddenly.
Who in the public life in this country be it politician, artist,
dramatist, musician, dancer, film maker evoked such over-whelming grief,
a genuine out pouring of sadness, such laurels in flower and words and
poems for a life so young, snuffed out by the hands of fate that awaits
us all.
An year has passed since he left us. Has it really been a year?
It has taken me that long to write a few words that can scarcely do
justice to a master-craftsman of the English language. Would he really
like us to mourn for him? Are there watering holes in Eternity?
Wherever he is he will be what he has always been, a younger
generation's conscience, a spokesman on behalf of our embattled island
home.
At his passing away, members of his tribe, his peers had no
inhibitions to link his name to the greatest in the world of Sri Lankan
journalism. H.A.J. Hulugalle, Tori de Sousa, Regi Siriwardena, Jayantha
Padmanabha, Tarzie Vittachi, Mervyn de Silva et al. Had he been alive I
doubt whether these encomiums, eulogies, panegyrics call it what you
will, would really have meant much to him.
I have no academic qualifications to write a critical analysis of his
style. But however inadequate my analytical skills may be some
observations must be made.
In all his best writings Ajith combined lucidity, elegance and grace,
grace as Hemingway said under pressure'.. as a combination this is a
difficult style, difficult to cultivate or imitate but a gift possibly
bestowed on the chosen few by the deities who look after the fortunes of
the fourth estate, should there be any.
In the hurly burly of daily journalism, to keep to deadlines,
journalists even the best ones are forced to resort, by the compulsion
of time to use the cliche,, the hackneyed-phrase.
Ajith was no exception. Read any of his critical essays on Arts,
Politics or his Profiles on our very important people and one would find
him using the language of daily journalism. But by some mysterious
process, even a cliche, reads as though it was re-invented, newly minted
in a style that depended on the dignity and eloquence of simple prose.
To digress for a moment. Long long ago when I was young, a fanatical
English teacher told me? 'Take this sentence from the Bible' God said,
'Let there be light' and there was light. Improve on it, of course I
couldn't. Now I often think of Ajith; he may have performed the miracle;
he may have improved on that peremptory divine pronouncement. After all
the Bible did have some of the most inspired reporters in literary
history.
The visitor
Over the years Ajith was one of the most regular visitor, to what
used to be No. 24, Dickman's Road.
He would insist (not that there was any objection on our part) on
bringing his three-wheel drivers and offering them seats either in the
verandah or in the drawing room. I suspect at the beginning this was a
challenge to our social conventions.
Neither Sumitra nor I bothered very much about it but we did feel
sorry for some of the poor guys who looked thoroughly discomfited
surrounded by paintings by my brother, the great artist in our family,
Ivan Peries, seated on antique chairs which they suspected might
collapse at any moment.
For his part Ajith would say, "I dropped in to borrow some books and
have a good katha." Though I can't boast of an extensive library, I had
some of his favourite author,smund Wilson, Cyril Connolly, the Letters
and Diaries of George Orwell (I'm sure a kindred spirit) Walter
Benjamin, Steiner, etc.
His favourites were critical essays rarely novels, no magic realism,
no post modernist, structuralist stuff of which I had just a few from
our four years in Paris. Strange he never picked a book on the Cinema.
Ajith knew I never kept a little black book to record the ones he
borrowed, nor did I badger him to return them.
I'd like to think he visited us not merely to borrow books but for
our companionship, Sumitra's and mine. It was not intellectual stimulus
he was after. It was, as I suspect a relief from it. He always appeared
to be completely relaxed, perfectly at ease. He knew he was always
welcome, the bar was open and though he often dropped in on his way home
(after visiting his favourite 'watering holes') to his wife who always
waited for him; it was always one for the road or'.
Though there was a considerable generation gap between him and me I
rather think that what strengthened our friendship was his involvement
in a number of lost causes on our behalf. The first I remember was his
urging the Government at that time to take over our ancestral home in
Dehiwela and convert it to a museum for Ivan's paintings and a room
reserved for my films. It wasn't surprising that in 48 hours the
building was demolished.
Another was a series of very powerful editorials that the State
should construct a special archive to preserve our local films. Had he
been alive I can just imagine his fury and horror at the news that the
original master-negatives of "Nidhanaya" - the film voted by local
critics as the best in the fifty years of Sri Lankan Cinema had been
burnt.
In Sri Lanka gossip is the fourth major language after Sinhala, Tamil
and English. In all the years I've known him I've never heard him
gossip, never about his colleagues, never about his workplace, never
about his bosses.
Occasionally he might hint about the many vicissitudes he suffered in
the newspaper offices he worked, from the "Upstairs-Downstairs"
Syndrome, but that too with a self-deprecating smile. He knew he had his
enemies, those who exploited his weaknesses but that didn't seem to
bother him unduly.
This was inevitable as his journalistic gifts, not merely the
elegance of his style but the mature insight with which he analysed and
probed in editorial and feature article our present discontent as a
nation and a people where our multi-religious and multi-ethnicity should
be our strength and not our weakness.
One has to admit though it is sad but true, that the real magnitude
of his achievement came to be realised only after his death. It was not
a surprise to me that the great Regi Siriwardena said he was his true
heir and his last wish was that he write his obituary.
I still remember the last time he was here. We were in the office the
shades of night were falling he had sipped his last one for the road
collected his books one a bulky volume of Scott- Fitzgerald, the
American author's incredibly moving letters to his daughter.
The books under his arm he walked out got into his three-wheeler
which with much stuttering and tooting of horn disappeared into the
night. Will we see him again. (Where are you Ajith, where are you?) |